Premiere Pro 2025: GPU Acceleration (CUDA) grayed out – works fine in 2024

Forum|Forum|8 months ago
July 9, 2025
5 replies
1609 views

I’m experiencing an issue with Premiere Pro 2025 where the GPU renderer option
Mercury Playback Engine – GPU Acceleration (CUDA)
is permanently grayed out – even in brand new projects with standard 1080p25 sequences and I-Frame MPEG preview settings.

My system:

Windows 10 Pro
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (driver 14.08.2024)
64 GB RAM
Premiere Pro 2025 (latest version, German UI)

✅ GPUSniffer confirms full CUDA support:
“Found CUDA device… No capability restrictions detected”

✅ Hardware encoding (NVENC) is working fine (e.g. with YouTube export presets and VBR 1-pass / CBR).

❌ But in the Project Settings, the GPU renderer is always locked to "Software Only" – and the dropdown is disabled.

In Premiere Pro 2024 on the same system, CUDA works perfectly and is freely selectable.

I’ve attached both compatibility reports for your reference.

Please investigate and fix this issue. I'm staying on 2024 for now, but I'd prefer to use 2025 long-term.
Thank you!

SystemCompatibilityReport-ProjectAnalysis.txt

SystemCompatibilityReport.txt

Performance or Stability

Correct answer Ann Bens

Please read the doc!

The screenshot is showing your card is active.

Ann Bens

Correct answer

Community Expert

Please read the doc!

The screenshot is showing your card is active.

B

Britta Isabel279934333cr3Author

Participant

THANK YOU Ann Bens! 🙂

B

Britta Isabel279934333cr3Author

Participant

Wow, that came fast! 😉 Thanks for clarifying! That makes sense now. Since I only have one GPU (RTX 3060), the CUDA engine is active but the option is greyed out by design in version 25.2+. I wasn’t aware of that change, I thought it wasn't working - and the help article really explained it well. Much appreciated!

B

Britta Isabel279934333cr3Author

Participant

Thanks for your reply!

I'm using NVIDIA Studio Drivers (DCH). Here are the full details:

- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060
- Driver type: Studio Driver (DCH)
- Driver version: 560.94
- Driver date (NVIDIA panel): August 14, 2024
- Internal version number (Device Manager): 32.0.15.6094
- Premiere Pro version: 25.2.3 (Build 4)

The driver was installed automatically via Windows Update on January 10, 2025.
A related Windows log entry shows that the NVDisplay.Container service was added/updated at that time – nothing unusual there.

As requested, I've attached a screenshot showing the grayed-out CUDA option in the Project Settings window.

Side note: Premiere Pro 2024 works perfectly on the same system – CUDA is available there without any issue.

Would you recommend updating to Studio Driver 576.80, or rolling back to a known stable version like 576.52?
Thanks a lot for your help!